Domestic violence, homelessness & safe housing in the wake of COVID
Shelter, homelessness and public health As coronavirus took hold earlier this year, states across the world began to lockdown. We were told at various points, across multiple geographies, to protect ourselves and others by staying at home and practising physical...
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Foreign aid during COVID: Whose suffering matters to Rishi Sunak?
A billion-pound cut from the UK’s international development budget in his new spending review, reducing aid down from 0.7% to 0.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) because of the COVID pandemic is both short-sighted and ill-advised.
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The Worst of 2020 – The Year of COVID-19
The year 2020 has been pretty wild. After the Tory landslide victory in the 2019 general election, we knew that 2020 would be bad, but little did we know how bad. In January the first reports began to circulate of...
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Tiers of a clown…
This week I’ve been trying to make sense of the supposed Tory party backbench revolt on the new three-tier system introduced in England after lockdown two. Reports tell us that 55 Tory MPs voted against the government and a further...
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Gallery (with a substantial meal special)
What is a Substantial Meal? As lockdown 2 ends in England, many places will be moving into Tier 2 restrictions, where one can only purchase a drink if you also purchase a ‘substantial meal’. This has led the editors of...
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Antibiotics: Handle with Care
At around 7 o’clock on Friday last week, the third day of World Anti-Microbial Awareness Week, I went downstairs and put a tray of oil in the oven to heat up while I showered, ready for the chips I planned...
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Laurel and Hardy vs the anti-vaxxers and vaccines
“People who spread myths about the harms of vaccines have ‘blood on their hands’”. These words came from the Health Secretary Matt Hancock little more than 18 months ago in an article in which he said that he refused to...
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Gallery
What We Have Seen Let’s not distance the social! In light of recent events important to note that there are other ‘White Houses’ around. This one, in Oxford, is being taken over by the Tap Social Movement which grew out...
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Self-Harm: Response and Reaction
Self-harm is clinically referred to as Non-Suicidal Self-Injury. It is described as an act which causes direct harm to the body but one where the focus is harm itself and not some other goal. Research into self-harm over the last...
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Sweden is no libertarian paradise for dealing with COVID
Libertarian and conservative commentators extol Sweden as an alternative model for dealing with the COVID pandemic that steers away from the lockdowns with which we are familiar in the United Kingdom and the United States. Elon Musk and Toby Young,...
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Beyond the academy: democratising user involvement in health & social care